Creation and Conception
John Constantine first appeared in 1985 as a recurring character in the horror series The Saga of the Swamp Thing, in which he acted as a "supernatural advisor" to the main character.
In these early appearances, Constantine was depicted as a sorcerer of questionable morality, whose appearance was based on that of the musician Sting (specifically, as Sting appeared in the movies Brimstone and Treacle and Quadrophenia). Alan Moore created the character after artists Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben, who were fans of The Police, expressed a desire to draw a character who looked like Sting. They had already drawn at least one such character in Sting's likeness, as a briefly glimpsed background figure wearing a black-and-red-striped t-shirt, in Swamp Thing #25 (1984). In his earliest Swamp Thing appearances, the character is drawn with a marked resemblance to Sting, and in Swamp Thing #51, Constantine appears on a boat with the name "The Honorable Gordon Sumner" on the bow.
John Constantine's official debut was not until Swamp Thing #37 when he was drawn by Rick Veitch and John Totleben. Moore describes the creation of Constantine as being drawn from a number of "really good ideas... about serial killers, the Winchester House, and... want to draw Sting in a story." Calling these disparate strands a "big intellectual puzzle", Constantine was the result of "fit it all together." Initially created "purely to get Sting into the story", by the time of the 1985 San Diego ComicCon, Moore stated that "t's turning into something more than that now." Veitch's contribution was to give Constantine an earring, something he considered risque for 1985.
Asked in 1985 about the similarities between John Constantine and the character Baron Winters (from Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Night Force), Moore revealed that he was a "big fan" of Wolfman and Night Force, but that there was "no intention to rip off Baron Winters." He stated
| “ | With Constantine, I don't know who I was thinking of. I just wanted this character who knows everything, and knows everybody — really charismatic. Who knows nuns, politicians, and bikers, and who is never at a loss for what to do. I suppose there is a similarity with Baron Winters in that he is another manipulative character who has a bunch of agents working with him. | ” |
Constantine and Winters met each other during Moore's run on Swamp Thing and again during Gaiman's The Books of Magic.
Speaking to comics magazine Wizard in 1993, Moore elaborated:
| “ | One of those early notes was they both wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. I think DC is terrified that Sting will sue them, although Sting has seen the character and commented in Rolling Stone that he thought it was great. He was very flattered to have a comic character who looked like him, but DC gets nervous about these things. They started to eradicate all traces of references in the introduction of the early Swamp Thing books to John Constantine's resemblance to Sting. But I can state categorically that the character only existed because Steve and John wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. Having been given that challenge, how could I fit Sting into Swamp Thing ? I have an idea that most of the mystics in comics are generally older people, very austere, very proper, very middle class in a lot of ways. They are not at all functional on the street. It struck me that it might be interesting for once to do an almost blue-collar warlock. Somebody who was streetwise, working class, and from a different background than the standard run of comic book mystics. Constantine started to grow out of that. | ” |
In 1988, Constantine was given his own title, Hellblazer, published by DC Comics. In 1993, at the launch of DC's Vertigo Comics imprint, Hellblazer was made an official Vertigo publication. It is the longest continuously published Vertigo title. The policy was reversed in 2011, when a version of Constantine appeared in the DC Universe crossover series Brightest Day, a spin-off series, Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing. Peter Milligan added him in the roster of The New 52 series Justice League Dark. Milligan began writing Justice League Dark while also writing the current Vertigo's Hellblazer series, being a writer of both series at the same time. In an interview, Milligan told Newsarama,
| “ | Yeah. Sorry about that. I felt pretty bad and it was quite strange, sitting on a few panels and then having a few interviews where I couldn’t actually say that I’d be writing Constantine for DCU. I have to say, though, that that didn’t change what I said, which I still stand by. Namely that as far as I’m concerned, it's important that the Vertigo Constantine and the DCU Constantine are kept separate, with no cross-over things going on. The DCU Constantine has to be the guy we know and love, with his same failings — otherwise what's the point of using him? But as I’m writing him he's younger and has perhaps been through a bit less than the battered aging old sod we meet in Vertigo. Unlike my Vertigo Constantine, the guy we see in JLA Dark is definitely not married! I also said and believe that the average DC reader – Vertigo and DCU – is sophisticated enough to be able to read both versions without getting confused. | ” |
Beginning in Justice League Dark issue #9, Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist Jeff Lemire will assume writing duties on the series, replacing Milligan who had returned on the Vertigo title. Speaking with CBR News exclusively, Lemire said he considers Justice League Dark his dream gig at DC Comics because Constantine is one of his all-time favorite characters not just in comics, but in all fiction. Lemire also teased that while Constantine, Zatanna and Deadman would remain on the roster, the team would change in his opening arc and expand.
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